


Parea

by perryvic, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Emotional Intelligence [3]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen, Newtypes (Gundam Wing), Plotting, Post-Eve Wars (Gundam Wing), Post-War, Prisoner of War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:48:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29765391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perryvic/pseuds/perryvic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: Shit, why did it have to be Quatre who got taken by the king-pin of the whole goddamn war? Duo knew he wasn't fully recovered when they were locked in together though he chatted and talked well enough. He had his datapad ready and they just needed to figure out how they were going to do a rescue. Quatre had to need a rescue, they'd all seen the pictures.
Series: Emotional Intelligence [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2186436
Kudos: 2





	Parea

**Author's Note:**

> Parea (παρέα) – In Greek culture, a parea is when a group of friends gather to share life experiences, philosophies, values, and ideas

As far as Duo was concerned, they were all in fucking trouble. But some of them were more in trouble than others, and it sort of made him wonder who he'd pissed off up there to end up a prisoner of war style spy. Embed. Whatever the fuck he was. But he was looking from his position and going it could've been worse.

Somehow.

He'd lucked out again and got Noin and Noin was a helluva pilot, had helped them before and...shit, why did it have to be Quatre who got taken by the king-pin of the whole goddamn war? He knew he wasn't fully recovered when they were locked in together though he chatted and talked well enough He had his datapad ready and they just needed to figure out how they were going to do a rescue. He had to need a rescue, they'd all seen the pictures.

Quatre looked beat to hell, even though Noin had said that it had been from the rough landing. Rough landing his ass, because how the hell did you get a black eye from a rough landing? It sounded like everyone had agreed on a story and Noin, hell, who wanted to believe their old hero was a sick fucker?

Yeah, they'd spoken and Quatre had said it was an accident, but he looked ten times worse than he had when Duo last saw him. All that was meant to have happened was he was transported to their head office and staying there.

Dammit, he had an overactive imagination, that's all he could think of.

Khushrenada had been weird and imperious all war, but all reports that were coming out of headquarters was that Quatre was being kept by his side, and he was constantly in bad shape one way or the other.

Well, they were having some form of pre-meeting meeting in Sanc which Khushrenada had send Noin to as his delegate, and Dorothy and Sally would be there too and he was impatient for the others to get to this rendezvous point room. It meant Heero, and Wufei and Trowa all together, which just left them one person down. The obvious one of their number and yeah. His head hurt. Everything was a mess, and Heero strode up looking calm as fuck

"Duo." Yeah that was Heero all over. "The room is cleared. The others will be here shortly." Succinct and to the point. He should have followed his instincts and gone to bust Quatre out, no matter the cost.

Not that he really thought he could have. But man. Man he wanted to. "What's up? What've you got?" He didn't even have to wait for the others, he just sort of wanted to see what they could do.

"The others will be here shortly," Heero said, folding his arms. " We need to discuss 04."

"Yeah, when and how the fuck are we breaking him out, man?" Duo mimicked Heero, folding his arms, too. "He's being held hostage by a fucking warlord."

"The situation is complex," Heero replied, even as Trowa and Wufei arrived at the same time. "Trowa, do you have the intel report?"

"I do. This is not, however, Dorothy's official position, though I believe she holds it in the back of her mind and is using it as a filter." It was a single data chip.

Wufei folded his arms while Heero took the chip and inserted it into his datapad reader. "What's the summary?" he asked bluntly. "I don't know the situation aside from the comments you have said."

"We believe Khushrenada has a plan to take control of the new government, and that Quatre has been compromised and brought into this plan." Heero flicked a look over at Wufei.

What the ever loving fuck? Duo felt his mouth drop open. "You are saying he is ...compromised?"

"There is evidence of 04's style of strategy and work in the output that is organising key aspects," Heero said as he frowned. He turned on the projector function of his datapad. "Read for yourself."

It felt like homework, and also like he was being fed a line, which pissed him off a little, but he dutifully read the provided section on how the Specials could leverage a high-level hostage from a colony to gain colonial support prior to the overthrow of UESA. "Okay, that's." Weird and possibly right there why he hadn't chosen Wufei. They were fucking obsessed, Wufei was the obvious choice.

Except his colony had exploded itself.

Quatre was as high profile as it got in the colonies. Winner Industries owned large swathes of space and he was the Heir of the family. The kids on L2 used to play at being the fabulously rich heirs of the Winner family and their life of decadence.

"I do not believe Quatre would be willing to cooperate in any plan that could harm the colony," Wufei said thoughtfully.

"Given a choice," Heero said. "I don't think he has been. We've all had suspicions on that front."

"Quatre assured me he was safe, and that Khushrenada was treating him well," Trowa countered. "And Dorothy has never known him to have a temper. She did suggest however that he had... tastes, and was known to seduce freely to get his way."

"He would not be so dishonorable!" Wufei declared. "Not to a prisoner in his custody."

Duo would bet he would, somehow. That was a whole other set of fears right there as if having the shit beaten out of him wasn't bad enough. "And this file is the work on how OZ could benefit and cooperate with the colonies by bringing them military technology." Heero carried on, unflinching as he spoke. He moved to the next document.

"The file is from the OZ headquarters servers, dated last week. Usernames associated with the file are the head of Oz Operations, Khushrenada, and an adjutant Winner," Trowa confirmed.

"It reads in the same patterns as 04's style," Heero said flatly. "We are going to have to work on the premise that he has been compromised."

"Mm. the evidence is flimsy," Wufei said. "How?"

"We've all experienced OZ's version of persuasion," Trowa said quietly, looking down.

"That's usually murder, not..." Duo waved a hand slightly as he read, let his eyes linger on the words. "Seriously. I don't know how this means Quatre's been compromised."

"Our intelligence reports multiple incidences of Quatre being seen with bruises in evidence on parts of his body. " Heero reported clinically. "And the General's personal Doctor was called specifically to attend to him several times."

"Dorothy says this does not match anything she expects from her cousin." Trowa repeated that blandly, like it was intel and not kitchen table gossip of anyone wanting to talk about people being compromised.

"Man. What the fuck do we do?"

This shouldn't have happened. Fuck, he should have stepped up and got him to choose him, he could take it. He was used to OZ's ways of treating prisoners. Quatre had looked after them often enough, why the hell were they writing him off?

"I am not sure there is anything that can be done until the conference talks," Trowa said. "None of us can get to him at the moment."

"Khushrenada has, according to Dorothy, gone very low contact except for their meetings. He emails. He has, by her accounts, withdrawn significantly." Trowa paused and added, "he has documented mental health problems."

"Mental health issues or not, I cannot believe Treize Khushrenada would personally abuse a prisoner," Wufei declared though he looked unsettled.

"He's probably got staff to do it for him," Duo muttered. "Or maybe he's just fucking snapped, you know?"

"You cannot deny the logical outcome. He's been in their hands for some time -- more than enough to brainwash him," Heero said. "He told you he was all right early on in the proceedings, which does not bode well for his resilience."

Duo glanced around the room, gauging them. "Yeah but how is what he's doing any different from what the rest of us are doing? Quatre probably got handed a pile of work. And he's doing it."

"It is a point," Trowa agreed. "We are all working, despite our prisoner status. It is the state of Quatre when I have seen him in our communications that concerns me. He does not look...well. To a trained observer he is clearly sleep-deprived, he appears to have lost a lot of weight and moves as if he is in pain a lot of the time."

"So that says torture, not 'compromised', I mean fuck, isn't he supposed to be an ally?" Duo gestured to the projected documents.

"Perhaps it is a measure of Khushrenada's instability. It might not have a logical basis, despite the plan information there," Heero scrolled down the page and the list of medical visits and in-house information painted a damning picture. Unconfirmed insider reports of doctor visits, cleaning services visiting the private suites specifically to remove organic debris - had to be blood. Reports of collapse, of housekeeping not having to make Quatre's bed. Blood stains on Treize's gloves...

Jesus fuck. Why were they just standing here?

He glanced over at Trowa, brain screaming because what the fuck. "So what, is our stance that he's a big boy and can rescue himself?"

"Our stance is he has not used any of the prearranged codes requesting an extraction," Heero pointed out bluntly. "Which means either he is compromised..."

"Or he feels what he is doing or getting close to is worth what he is enduring," Wufei added. They hadn't seen Quatre after the war. How bad he was, losing that fucking kidney. You didn't go all super spy after someone impaled you on a long sharp bit of metal.

But maybe. Maybe. Quatre was sort of exceptional, and Duo nodded at that because that was at least closer to what seemed like reality. "Or he's gotten lost in a bad situation and has sympathy and is helping," Trowa suggested. 

There was a moment of silence. That was also a very likely possibility. Quatre had sounded sincere enough when they were talking but he could see him being sucked into sorting out a mess. It might be a baited trap or a real mess but Quatre would do that, Duo knew that much. He'd think nothing of being struck by someone in pain and distress. He'd think nothing of suffering whatever moods and mental instability were going on if doing so meant he would work towards a grander plan of safety for anyone.

"Y'know, that plan could work both ways," he said slowly. "They could be using us as hostages against his good behaviour."

"Perhaps." Heero seemed dubious as he said it, watching Duo. "But for now we must act as if he is in on this plan."

"Hmm." Wufei folded his arms. "I do not agree with framing him as an enemy. Technically we are all on the side of our previous enemies. We have all tried to follow the thread of integrity from side to side."

"And here we all sit, talking, trading information, enjoying transparency." Trowa sounded flat and calm as ever. "And we are not being visited by medical staff, and there are no reports of unexplainable ill-health and violence."

It just backed up what he thought. Duo clenched his fists. "When can we get him out then? That's what we're planning right?"

They were all quiet, looking between each other. "The risk to the peace is too high. The only option is to wait until the meetings here, gauge the situation, and maneuver if necessary."

"Shit..." Duo paced. "So it's fucking fine for us to leave him there? When we've all decided that good scenario or bad he's probably being tortured?!"

"The moment one of us breaks their parole, we will all be locked down," Heero said. "If we wait until all of us are in Sanc, that issue is nullified, and our Gundams are likely to be here as well. "

"We will have all of our resources together and Quatre with us." Trowa glanced at Wufei. "He hasn't used any of the agreed on code words for extreme distress. I believe he'll weather this."

It was true he hadn't. But Quat had been...low. Really low. When they talked in the cell he'd just let slip a few things that made him think he believed the whole goddam war was his fault.

Duo's heart wanted to go find him, rescue him but he had to push it down with the logic. Quatre hadn't signalled distress, or need for rescue. He was the one that came up with those codes and the potential necessity for them so he couldn’t even pretend he might have forgotten. Going it alone was a recipe for disaster and he'd never sanction putting everyone else in peril.

"Shit, this sucks man."

"Yes." Trowa nodded, glancing over at Wufei. "Yes. And everyone we're working with would like to intervene sooner, but... Khushrenada holds the military in thrall more than ever. Even the remaining Alliance forces."

Duo got it, the new peace would be gone in a moment if someone stirred the embers up, even over one person. He folded his arms, kicked the nearest table in frustration and felt like complete shit.

"It's agreed then," Heero said after watching him do that. "We will monitor the situation and when all of us are together, we will reconvene and assess the level of compromise and danger."

The other two gave agreeing noises and fuck. That was that, and all he could do was bear through and wait.


End file.
